


A Very Human Risk

by MalMuses



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Destiel - Freeform, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, POV, Shipper Sam, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 12:23:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14213088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalMuses/pseuds/MalMuses
Summary: Team Free Will’s thousand mile journey home from a routine hunt is going to take a little longer than planned. Sam’s patience with Dean and his Angel’s lack of true communication doesn’t last that far…





	1. Part 1 - Sam

**Author's Note:**

> My very first fanfic, not to mention the first thing I’ve written in at least 10 years. Eek! 
> 
> There are 6 parts to this fic, from various character points of view, and an epilogue. (So technically 7 parts I suppose….) 
> 
> Technically, Part 6 can be skipped if you are looking to avoid smut, but I recommend keeping it in for story purposes if you can.
> 
> This fic is set during early to mid Season 13, shortly after Cas’s return from The Empty.

_Blood. Miscellaneous viscera. A small chunk of what might be intestine… more blood._ Sam idly examined the stains on his pants while he waited for the lights to change. He was sat shotgun in the front of the Impala, ignoring the thump of his possibly-concussed head so that Dean could swing them through the drive-thru of a small mom-and-pop burger joint near Zebulon, North Carolina.  _Something clear and kinda greasy… was that spinal fluid?_  Some days, it was definitely better to pick a food option where they didn’t have to get out of the car. In the wide back seat, Castiel shifted his weight forward and reached into the driver’s space. He seemed miraculously clean himself, but he had no qualms or squeamishness about the lump of something-or-other he flicked out of Deans sandy hair. There was a tiny plop as whatever-it-was landed on the dashboard.

“Hey, watch the tunes…” Dean grumbled mildly, pushing a slightly yellowed cassette of Styx songs away from the chunk.

Castiel made no response, instead retreating to his often worn silent-but-listening expression and returning his gaze out of the window.

A few minutes later, Dean passed a large brown bag of warmth and questionable nutrition over to Sam, who settled it on his lap among the stains and began to rifle through as they made their way back to the highway.

“They forgot a fork for my salad…” Sam lamented quietly.

“Guess you’ll have to eat it straight out of the bowl, like a true rabbit,” Dean offered with a slight grin. His words were teasing, but his tone was thin and tired. He shifted in his seat, wincing sorely at an assortment of minor wounds.

They had been on the road for several hours since they ganked a whole nest of vampires near the coast, trying to make sure they’d shaken a particularly curious traffic cop who pulled them on the way back from cleaning up the remains. He’d found no issue with the license of a certain Edward Halen, thank Chuck, but had seemed more than a little disturbed by the state of the car and its occupants. Dean had thought it best to ditch their plan to wash up in a nearby motel and stay on the road until they were well clear. Although filthy, beaten and in several cases bleeding, none of them were gravely wounded and they figured a good few hours of the road back home couldn’t hurt.

“You should rest soon.” It was a statement from Castiel in the back. “Or at least shower.”

 _We must smell awful to him_ , Sam contemplated.

Dean opened his mouth to offer a quick retort, but after a couple of seconds, he merely sighed and agreed. 

“Yeah. Let’s find somewhere with a room for tonight. It’s over a thousand miles back to Kansas, so we’re not getting back to the Bunker today anyways. Or at least find a by-the-hour with a ton of hot water.” 

He paused briefly to check the traffic before swinging the car out onto the highway. “I’ll head towards Raleigh, there’s bound to be some kinda motel before we hit the city.”

Sam nodded idly, distracted by more pressing matters. “Dean, did you seriously order  _three_  cheeseburgers?”

“Yes.” His brother snapped, before rolling his eyes and relenting. “One’s for Cas, bitch.”

“Cas doesn’t eat, jerk.”

“Oh, but I can.” The speed with which Castiel snatched the offending item from Sam’s hand was really unnecessary.

Sam watched Dean’s eyes slide back to look at the angel as he unwrapped the greasy package, biting into the burger with a contented little sigh. His brother looked pleased with himself, a tiny smile curling his lip as their eyes caught and hovered for just a second too long, before Dean had to return his gaze to the tarmac. Sam said nothing. He’d been around these two long enough to know moments like that weren’t his to intrude on. The silence that followed though… that bugged him a lot more than it used to before.

 

*** * ***

 

Throwing the motel card to Dean, Sam ducked down into the driver’s seat of the Impala. 

“Go grab the first shower Dean, so we can get your injuries patched up. Cas and I will run to that grocery store we passed and grab some beer and snacks for later.”

Without waiting for a response, Sam spun out of the Motel 8 parking lot. Looking over his shoulder, he caught Castiel's slightly confused expression. The angel said nothing though and remained in place on the back seat, almost eerily immobile as the Impala lurched over the uneven gravel. It took only a couple of minutes to get to the Food Lion parking lot. As the car settled, Sam took the key and slipped it into his pocket, but didn’t immediately move.

“Perhaps I should fetch the beer, Sam,” Cas rumbled mildly. “For once, I may draw less attention.” He gestured to Sam’s splattered clothing.

“Yeah, I really took the brunt of the spray when Dean hacked that brunette.”

The door creaked as Cas began to open it.

“Cas?”

“Yes, Sam?”

Sam took a moment to think before he turned his giant form in the seat, so he could look at the angelic face in the back. Castiel still had one hand on the door handle. “Do you love my brother, Cas?”

A ghost of something shot across Castiel’s brilliant blue eyes before he responded. “Of course, Sam. You’re both family to me.”

Sam chuckled slightly, but it was a sad sound. 

“Of course.” Despite his tone, his smile to the angel was genuinely fond.  “But… I watched Dean grieve for you when you were in the Empty, Cas. I’ve seen him grieve plenty over the years…Grief for family. Dad. Mom. Bobby. For friends, for Charlie, Kevin, Ellen, and Jo… We thought you were really gone, Cas. Christ, I missed you too. It was awful. But Dean…. I’ve never seen him grieve like that Cas. He lost himself.”

The silence in the trench coat loomed for several moments.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that, Sam.” His voice a soft, frustrated growl. “It was a stupid move on my part. I was reckless and you paid for that.”

“You made a snap decision Cas, we’ve all done worse,” Sam comforted, waving a hand dismissively. “But that’s not my point.”

Castiel’s gaze dropped down and he began to fidget uncharacteristically with his tie.

Sam thinks for a moment about how mad Dean would be if he knew this conversation was why he had kidnapped the angel from the motel.  _Eh. At least he’ll have something valid to be angry about this week._

“He broke, Cas. He hasn’t told you, but when I say he lost himself? He almost died. I think he tried…” Sam’s gentle voice trailed off momentarily. He was suddenly aware that he was now using the same tone to speak to Cas as he used to soothe distressed victims such as they often came across during hunts. “…I mean, I don’t know that he made the conscious decision, but… the day that you came back, he died. To find a ghost. He was gone for a long time… too long. I don’t think he really cared if he came back. Not with you gone.”

When the angel’s eyes rose back up to Sam’s face, the blue was dangerously dark and his brow furrowed noticeably. “You think Dean would  _give up_  like that? Because of  _me_?”

“I think,” Sam spread his hands in a calming gesture. “I just think he was grieving for something… more.”

In a moment of bravery, Sam reached awkwardly into the back seat and rested his hand on the angel’s knee.

“I just thought… if I told you, maybe…..” He trailed off, unsure now.

Castiel looked down at the hand resting on his dress pants, his gaze giving away that it was a strangely alien sight. Cas and Dean shared friendly touches and personal space often. It was comfortable now, normal. But despite the occasional hug or shoulder clap in their history, Sam didn’t usually invade his space more than he had to. Castiel's brief smile was grateful.

His otherworldly blue eyes drifted out of the window and rested on an elderly man headed into the grocery store with a cart, following him for a long moment before he eventually looked back to the younger Winchester.

“Sam, you know that… closeness between Humans and Angels is frowned upon.”

It wasn’t quite an admission, but Sam caught it, a small smile breaking his huge face. 

“Being a rebel is hardly new to you, Cas… and it’s not like you and Dean could create a Nephilim or anything. At least, uh…” Sam’s brow furrowed.  _Could they? Angels didn’t even have a gender, so how much did the vessel really….._

As if watching the cogs in Sam’s brain turn, Cas interrupted briefly. “No. Male human, male angelic vessel. No Nephilim risk there.” He seemed slightly amused by Sam’s momentary confusion, something akin to a smirk briefly passing his lips.

“Right.” Sam’s laugh was somehow relieved. Good. That would be weird as fuck.

Minutes passed, in not totally uncomfortable silence.

“Sam?”

Pushing his hair back behind his ear, Sam quickly brought his attention back to the angel. “Yeah?” He tried for his best open, accepting smile.

“Am I to take it then, that… You would not be adverse to any change in mine and Dean’s… our… relationship? Such as it is?”  Cas seemed to stumble a little with the wording, finding his tongue betraying him in his moment of need, attempting to voice something he had kept unspoken for the best part of a decade. “I’m… nothing, really. Not quite an angel anymore, not quite a human…. and my vessel is male. Dean hasn’t ever indicated that he would, uh, want….”

Cas’s voice gives up the ghost entirely, a flush working its way out of his white shirt collar, much to Sam’s slightly cruel delight. He took a second to bite back a teasing response, not wanting to spook the angel in a pivotal moment. 

“Castiel.” Using the angel’s full name seemed to calm his gaze and bring his attention back to Sam. “You’re my brother, man. Maybe not by blood born…but damn, by blood spilled, you’re my brother. I can’t tell you what Dean wants, or for sure how he’ll react….but I know what I’ve seen, these past years. Life is too short… human life, anyway. I just wanted you to know so that… if you wanted to talk to him, you’d know you had my blessing and my support. Whatever happens.”

“What if he doesn’t want me, Sam?”

The gigantic Winchester was suddenly floored by the raw vulnerability in the angel’s voice. From his awkwardly turned position in the front of the Impala, all he can do is firmly squeeze Castiel’s knee.

“Well… that’s a very human risk, Cas. You may be an angel again, but you out of them all know what it is to feel…. and I think even as an angel you’re capable of sharing that terrifying little part of humanity. All I can tell you is that I’m here for you dude, as trite as that sounds.”

Cas can only nod, his gaze resting soulfully on Sam’s comforting hand.


	2. Part 2 - Dean

Dean scrubbed his nails back and forth across his scalp, watching an assortment of small chunks decorate the plastic bottom of the beige motel shower.  _Ugh. That was one messy hunt._ His body ached and he registered pain that needed to be dealt with, more than one spot yelling out for attention after being ignored while they drove.

There had been many more vampires than they anticipated, the planned swift decapitations quickly turning into wild, life-preserving slashes as more and more of them piled in from the darkness in the corners of the warehouse. Thank Chuck that Cas had his grace these days. There were things Dean missed about his best friend being human, but during a hunt like that he’d take powered-up Cas any day.

The filth in the shower began to drain away and he finally began to actually feel clean. He stood for a minute, looking up and letting the water cascade down onto his face. _We should check in with Jack and see if we need to make any stops on the way home_ , he thought vaguely. Sam and Cas hadn’t been too keen to leave the kid back at the bunker, Dean knew. The case Sam had caught online, a bunch of disappearances and bloodied bodies stretching up the coasts of the Carolina’s, had seemed simple enough though. They should have been able to kill the vamp, drive overnight and been back in Lebanon by lunch the next day. _Should have known. When do we ever get simple?_

The pipes creaked and shuddered loudly as he shut off the water, reaching out from the aged shower curtain to grab the a towel. Pressing it roughly to his face, he took a moment to dry his eyes and take in the smell of basic laundromat detergent. A thin river of blood escaped from a long gash just above his left hip; washing the dried blood off seemed to have opened it back up. Dean assessed it with practiced eyes and decided no stitches were needed, the bleeding should stop on its own once he dried off. None the less, he pressed the towel to his side as he stepped out of the shower into the suddenly cold bathroom air, grateful again that Sam and Cas had gotten off so lightly from the fight.

Realizing his duffel of clothing was on the end of one of the beds, he paused briefly inside the bathroom door, listening to see if his brother or Cas had returned from their very sudden beer trip.  _Cas may be immune to my human charms but there are definitely some things Sam could do without an eyeful of_ , he mused idly as he stepped out into the empty motel room. He quickly rummaged through the old bag he carried on hunts and stepped into a pair of boxers, still keeping the towel pressed to his hip.  _Where did I put the first aid kit?_ He wondered, thinking that a quick swipe of peroxide couldn’t do the gash any harm. Those vampires had been dirty as fuck, after all. Briefly remembering throwing it into Sam’s bag, Dean lowered himself to perch on the end of the bed closest to the bathroom door.  _Gigantor didn’t even stop to throw his bag into the room before he zoomed out of here._  It was strange, but in the scheme of things, whatever. If Sam wanted to run out awkwardly and do something secret then so be it. Dean had gotten much better the past few years at letting Sam do his thing. He did wish he hadn’t taken Cas though… even if he wouldn’t have admitted it out loud, Dean had tried to keep the angel by his side as much as possible since he returned to them. The idea of him being gone, even temporarily, still left a heavy weight in his stomach.  _Son of a bitch is too careless, it’d be just like him to get himself hurt on the way to a damn grocery store._

The crunch of gravel close to the door indicated the Impala’s return, and Dean heard a low rumbling voice outside the room. A quiet conversation seemed to be occurring, but he couldn’t quite make it out. Reluctant to open the door in just boxers and a slightly bloody motel towel, he resigned himself to standing up and sorely hobbling back and forth at the end of the bed as he waited, trying to stretch out his aching knees. The bleeding from his wound - from the blade one of the ambushing vamps had whipped out, he assumed - was already beginning to slow, so he maintained pressure and muttered under his breath about his companions’ priorities.

After a few more minutes of hushed conversation the door opened with a click, and the strikingly handsome angel swished through the gap, framed by evening sunlight and his trench coat flapping dramatically in the breeze.

“Always gotta make an entrance, huh buddy?” Dean commented dryly, stepping towards the end of the bed once more. He grimaced, pain shooting through one knee as he twisted it slightly.  _That sucker’s gonna be sore in the morning._

Castiel didn’t look up immediately, though Dean could have sworn he saw a tiny grin pass his face as he stepped over to the nightstand, letting his blade slide out of his sleeve so as to place it next to the lamp and cheap plastic alarm clock, where it made a gleaming friend for Dean’s resting gun. “I believe that humans think first impressions count….” he began, before his vivid eyes raked over to see Dean lowering himself awkwardly to the end of one of the beds, one leg held out stiffly in front of him and a bundle of bloodied cloth pressed to his left hip above his underwear, fresh bruises just beginning to bloom all across his otherwise undressed skin. “Dean?”

In a flash, the angel was at the older Winchester brother’s side, his eyes a fraction wider and his face intense. “You’re more injured than I had realized. Let me help.”

Dean held up a hand defensively. “I’m alright, really. No mojo to be wasted here. I just wanted to make sure the cut was sterilized before I got dressed and you two ran off so fast you took the first aid kit with you.” He glared up at the angel, but it is half-hearted, a joke more than anything. “Where’s Sam? He’s got the stuff in his duffel.”

“Oh, he… uhm.” Castiel reached up to rub briefly at the back of his neck, his other hand resting on Dean’s shoulder in concern. “He felt like getting a room of his own tonight…. I’ll go get him.”

_What the hell?_

* * *

“So, uh, you all good?” Sam asked, only his shoulders and head visible around the motel room door, his feet still firmly outside.

Cas had returned a moment before with the small leather wash bag that contained their first aid supplies, Sam in tow behind him, though it seemed he didn’t have any desire to actually come into the room. Dean raised an eyebrow at his oddly-behaving brother, but said nothing about it. “I’ll be fine. It’s almost stopped, see?”

He lifted the once-white towel away from his side, and Sam looked at the gash, nodding briefly as if satisfying himself that it wasn’t deep. “Alright then. I’ll be in my room having some introvert time if you need anything. I, uh…. I’m not next door.”

“Huh?” Dean raised an eyebrow at his brother’s odd wording, but he was already gone, the door thudding slightly behind him. Instead, Dean turned to Cas. “What’s up with him?”

Cas blinked, and Dean noticed him pull somewhat awkwardly on his tie at Sam’s cryptic departure. “Why would I know Dean?”

Slowly folding his sore knee back towards the bed, Dean rolled his eyes slightly heavenward and shook his head. “Nevermind. You’re all weird. Let me just get a band aid on this so we can call Jack to check in.”

“That may require more than a band aid, Dean.” Cas intoned seriously, crouching down next to the bed so that he was eye level with the wound. _And eye level with my crotch too_ , Dean thought heatedly.  _All this time on Earth and still so awkward…he still has no idea of appropriate behavior sometimes…_

Without asking if Dean wanted any assistance, Cas reached into the wash bag for a small black plastic bottle of peroxide and a cloth, soaking it and raising it up to the wound wordlessly. His touch was delicate, and Dean marveled for a minute at how the angel’s fingers could be so gentle and yet could so easily cause such destruction. “Thank you,” he murmured after a moment, barely breaking the silence while Cas worked.

“Of course.” The blue eyes snapped up to Dean’s face with an easy smile, and their eyes locked for a moment as they almost always did – a kind of strange magnetism of the soul that Dean had given up questioning many fights ago.

“Stand up Dean, so I can get this on straight.” Cas gestured upwards, a long strip of gauze and roll of medical tape in his hand. He stood up himself, rolling his shoulders out of the odd crouch he had maintained while cleaning the angry gash. Quickly, he placed the items on the ugly floral comforter while he shucked off his trench coat, folding it almost respectfully and resting it across the back of a nearby chair. He pushed up his white shirt sleeves as he stepped back towards Dean, and the slightly taller man finding himself dumbly thinking,  _Always so white. I should ask him if he puts bleach in his laundry. Does he even do laundry any more?_

The quiet between them seemed charged with something odd as Dean watched Castiel’s fingers position the long strip of gauze into place, following the cut down and around from his side along the angle of his hip bone, to where it thinned out and dissipated right before his boxers began. The tape was then pressed lightly into place to hold it. Dean was so focused on watching as the angel’s fingers moved softly back and forth, smoothing the dressing down perhaps a little more than was strictly necessary, that he didn’t feel the blue eyes resting on his face until the hand stopped, resting immobile on his hip.

“Dean.” It wasn’t really a question, so Dean didn’t respond. He let his gaze meet Castiel’s and waited, holding the electric look with a calm silence that would have been suffocating with anyone else. 

 _Why does he look so tense today?_  

He considered asking, parting his lips with a tiny lick, when he felt Cas’s forefinger slowly trailing down the path of the wound, so light as to barely touch. From Dean’s freckled hip and on down, the finger continued until the hem of his boxers just fractionally moved aside as the digit’s journey came to an end, resting on the edge of the medical tape. 

“Does that feel better now?” Cas’s voice was gravel, and his finger was fire.

Dean heard blood pounding in his ears. 

“I….uh…yup. Yup. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

The angel tilted his head to one side just a fraction, a curious glint to his eyes as he studied the man before him, and Dean was immediately taken back to the first time they met here on Earth. That same expression, looking deep into Dean’s face with a silent honesty that no human he knew had ever managed.  _You don’t think you deserve to be saved._

For a second, Dean thought Castiel might say something similar now, but instead he smiled slowly, his pillowy lips parted to reveal startlingly white teeth. “Yes Dean, you are fine.”

_Wait…was that…. Is he flirting with me? Does he even realize? Of course not. Nope. Dumbass._

“And now you’re frowning. I said the wrong thing, again.” Castiel’s smile was gone, a tiny frown of his own creasing his brow.

“No, no man… it’s just usually when people say someone is fine, they are inferring that the person they’re talking to is attractive. It’s a flirtation.”  Dean grinned a little, thinking it’d be amusing to fluster the angel a little – but Cas was as blunt and nonplussed as ever.

“Oh. Well, the statement is correct either way. Your form is very pleasing, Dean.”

 _Your form is very pleasing. Jesus H. Christ. Pleasing. Like… in general? Or to him? Does he even see me like a human would?_ For a bizarre fleeting second, Dean considered praying to Chuck for assistance understanding his rebel son, but immediately put the kibosh on the idea. _Last thing I ever, ever want to talk to Chuck about. The asshole would probably write all about it afterwards. Or smite me… never really got around to asking what his stance actually was on how and where humans use their parts. Not that Cas would always follow what…._

Cas was staring at him. Staring in confusion as Dean stood with a strange, contemplative expression on his face, running through an inner monologue that was swiftly heading towards where Cas would or would not put his…. parts.

“Drink.” Dean spluttered swiftly. “I need a drink after that drive…. Where’d you and Sam put the beer?”

Cas blinked. “Beer? Oh… uh. Right. We went to the grocery store. Yes.”

Dean doesn’t need Chucks help to understand the expression on the angel’s face then – it went, _Oops. We never actually went to the grocery store._

* *  *

Dean tucked the on-sale six pack under his arm and took a couple of strides towards the cash register, before he turned back to grab a second one. It seemed like a drinking kind of night.

He had briefly yelled at Cas, not really because of the beer, but….  _Stop being weird, damn it_. _What were you and Sam even up to?_ Then he had shoved the angel in the direction of the shower and grabbed the keys. There was no way he was getting through the night without a drink. Throwing down a twenty for the beers, tucked them all under his arm on the same side, so he could dig in his pocket for his phone.

**_Next time you need to keep a cover story intact, remember the damn beer._ **

A text came back immediately.

_**Sorry.** _

Dean waited…. but nothing else.

**_Seriously Sam? That’s all I get?_ **

**_Yes._ **

Dean rolled his eyes and dropped the beers onto the back seat of the Impala, giving up and sliding the phone back into his jacket pocket.  _Fine. Sam can be a secretive bitch all he wants… he’ll tell me eventually. Always does._


	3. Part 3 - Castiel

“Hmm.”

Castiel made a small noise of contemplation as he worked loose his tie, dropping it onto the small wooden bench next to the motel shower.  _What did I do wrong?_  He contemplated stoically, running back over Dean’s expressions and sounds during their discussion as he shed his white shirt. _Dean seemed flustered and embarrassed, judging from his pupil dilation and raised pulse… but why would he be so from that topic? I brought it up, not him…false modesty?_

Shoes, belt and pants folded neatly onto the bench.

 _Humans can still be so confusing sometimes._   _Even being one only helped so much. Understanding their emotions…. and my emotions now, I suppose… seems a never ending task._  Shaking his head a fraction he neatly folded his underwear on top of his dress pants before he stepped into the plastic stall, following Dean’s instructions to get washed up.

Cas didn’t need to take showers, but he did like them. Most of his memories of being human were fuzzy, unpleasant and overwhelming. So much… _.feeling_. Pain was bright, commanding. Loneliness was quieter, yet harder to ignore. Heartbreak, he’d discovered, was a physical heaviness in the chest like all the air had been sucked out of the room. Like when Dean had sent him away.  _You can’t stay._  Few pleasant things about being human remained clear in his memory, washed out by the all-encompassing feeling of just… _feeling_. Showers were definitely one of the most pleasing. The warmth trickling over his human body, the feeling of heat and liquid movement… it had reminded him, at the time, of wrapping his wings in tight about himself so that he could rocket up to the sky and beyond. Now, even as an angel, that feeling was lost to him. He wanted to fly, but he couldn’t. His tattered wings served only as another reminder of all he had lost. The showers though, remained.

He turned the heat up far higher than would have been comfortable as a human, trying to burn out the fleeting memory of all those negative emotions. But he knew there was a reason he couldn’t forget that feeling… that moment where he’d have sworn the world had dropped from under his chair as Dean dismissed him from the bunker. From his only home and only family. He knew why, now. He understood and it didn’t even occur to him to be mad that Sam would always come first. That protecting Sam would always be more important than protecting him. Dean and Sam were brothers, tighter than Cas had ever seen human families. He wasn’t mad. So why couldn’t he forget?  _Because that moment where I thought Dean didn’t want me to stay….. was the first time I was able to understand that I wanted to stay. More than anything. I wanted to stay with Dean._ It had always been there, it wasn’t new – that electric connection between he and Dean. But until he was human, he’d never truly been able to understand the depth of what it was.

He reached for the tiny bar of soap the motel had provided; Dean had already used it thoroughly and the extra soap and bubbles had glooped and stuck to the little plastic shelf. He reached out to work it easily free and paused, looking at his fingers and remembering Sam’s hand an hour or so ago, resting on his knee. It had been a simple, comforting connection. Very human. Castiel felt a rush of affection and appreciation for Sam, this giant of a man who had always been his friend. A human brother who forgave easily and always tried to understand him, even though he knew as an angel he was incomprehensible to most humans. It was very like Sam to want to reassure Cas that he felt no ill or judgement towards him, for what he now realized must have been an increasingly obvious crush on his older brother. 

Cas was used to being judged. It was part of his makeup. He had been judged and controlled before he fell, and long after. Loving Sam was easy… he was smart for a human, curious and simple to get along with. Thinking briefly to his celestial brothers, Cas momentarily considered that Sam would have been an excellent angel. A proper one, as he believed they had been intended to be. He loved Sam as a true brother. But loving Dean… loving Dean was pain. It was the opposite of simple. They fought, Cas because he could never say what he truly wanted to say and Dean because he didn’t understand Cas’s erratic actions. By never speaking of the truth of their situation, Cas had been able to continue to love Dean as a brother and friend, fighting by his side and doing what he could to share his burdens. The idea of jeopardizing that relationship, of risking feeling that heartbreak again by expressing those thoughts he had hinted at in the car…. Sam had been right.  _That is a very human risk_.

Soaping down his body with the tiny white bar, Cas leaned his forehead against the wall of the shower and sighed softly.  _Be brave, brother…_  The voice floated unbidden through his mind on a wave of memory, a voice he hadn’t heard for several years.  _Gabriel_. The most human of his haughty archangel brothers, it was Gabe to whom Cas had been closest in the recent millennia. Maybe Michael, once… but that was long ago. Before Lucifer. It seemed only Gabriel saw and understood the things that Cas did about this world.  _Ha, be brave._ Cas thought sourly. His trickster brother would have had no problems there – if he’d have wanted Dean, he’d have flirted and smiled and whisked him off into bed the second he met him, whether Dean was straight or gay or anything in between. It wouldn’t have mattered; it was Gabriel. Castiel wasn’t like that. He’d never been confident in himself in that way, like many of his brothers were. He’d never had the cause or the time to worry about it. There were things about himself he was sure of; that he was one of Heaven’s best warriors, that he was a superior tactician and that his aerial skills drew the eyes of many an angel. Hannah had noted once that as an angel, he was attractive and popular… before his fall. He’d been respected. Now, he was an outcast…and he was fairly sure if Dean saw his true face, he’d feel nothing but fear. They were too different. He looked down at his vessel, the water cascading across his smoothly muscled stomach and compact runner’s thighs.  _Now…. I am this. Jimmy gave me his everything and yet there is a part of me that wishes…. Another vessel would have been easier, perhaps. Maybe Dean would have liked me if I was different._ The realization came cascading over him with full force once he let it in, and he raised a hand to the wall next to his forehead, supporting himself as he slumped slightly.  _This is what I am now. Not quite angel, not quite man. My heart won’t be returned to me because Dean will never see past this vessel. I’m nothing, and I am alone._

His shoulders shook as he felt the full humanity of his heart.


	4. Part 4 - Dean

“Cas? You still in the shower?” 

Dean could hear water running as he swiped the motel card and stepped through the door. He dumped the beer he carried down onto the end of the second bed, avoiding thinking for the moment about the strange, yet somehow exhilarating moment with Cas in that spot just a short while before. “Cas?”

He stepped up to the bathroom door, knocking with one knuckle. “Hey Cas, I’m back… I’m kinda still hungry, you wanna order pizza or something?”

The water continued to run, but there was no response. _Calm down Dean. He’s fin_ e, he found himself thinking. Unbidden, the image of Cas’s face, his eyes closed as he lay on a simple cabin table, comes rushing to Dean.  _He’s fine. He’s not dead. He’s in the shower_.

For a few minutes, Dean stood awkwardly next to the door, before forcing himself to shake off his jacket and place his gun on the nightstand. His eyes rested on the bathroom door.  _I’ll just open the door and shout, I won’t go in and be weird…. I just need to know he’s okay. Just checking up. It’s been a rough day, after all._

“Cas, just letting you know I’m back from the store.” Steam gushed out of the tiny bathroom past Dean as he swung the door open, keeping his eyes firmly trained on the foot of the bed, standing sideways in the entrance.

When there was no response, Dean was done. He stuck his head into the bathroom.  “Sorry Cas, I’m not meaning to intrude or anything, I swear… don’t think you could hear me calling from the bedroom.”

It took a couple of seconds for Dean to take in the scene before him. Cas is stood in the shower, burning water beating down onto his shoulders, as he leaned his forward to rest his brow on the tile, a hand each side of him holding him up. The rest of his body was somewhat obscured by the slightly yellowing shower curtain, but the plasticy fabric did nothing to hide the fact that the angel was crying. Deans green eyes widened in surprise as they followed the tears down the angels cheeks. It had taken a moment to even realize what he was seeing… the drip of red falling from the corner of Cas’s squeezed shut eye.  _Deep distress_. Dean had looked it up once, with Sam – both of them fearing that Naomi had done some physical damage to Cas. But the only reference they had found to angels crying blood had indicated that when suffering, an angel can lose control of their empty vessel and without the underlying processes that make the vessel ‘alive’ for the angel, the tear ducts can fill with blood. _Suffering._

Dean approaches gently, a hand going out to rest on the back of the angel’s neck. Goddamn that water is hot, he registered in the back of his mind. “Castiel?”

He jumped. Cas jumped like a cat, so lost in thought that even with his supernatural angel-senses he hadn’t heard Dean speak or approach until his fingers rested on top of his spine. He blinked over at him, streaks of bloodied pink water quivering down his cheeks. “Dean?”

Brow furrowed with concern, Dean pushed the shower curtain aside and reached up to turn the water off with one hand, using the strong, tanned arm that now rested atop Cas’s back to pull the angel into his chest. 

“Cas, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” The sparkle of green in Dean’s eyes seemed to glint dangerously for a second. “Did someone hurt you?”

Whatever answer the angel would have made was lost into Dean’s chest as his attempts at comfort seem to suddenly cause Cas to come undone, shaking and sobbing into his arms.

 _Well shit_ , Dean thought. He battled with sorrow at seeing his best friend sobbing so desolately, warring with a simmering rage at whatever or whoever had caused this distress in the usually stoic angel.  _How do I fix a wet, bawling angel who can’t even tell me what’s wrong?_

Keeping a firm hold on Castiel, one arm around him at all times, Dean guided his reddened, damp body out of the shower and through to the bedroom, murmuring senseless, comforting gibberish the whole time. 

“It’s okay Cas, I got you… Come on buddy, I got you…” 

He pressed lightly on Cas’s surprisingly muscled shoulder, forcing him to sit down onto the bed as Dean pulled the top blanket up and tried to get it around him, suddenly very conscious that Cas is completely naked. _Keep your eyes up, eyes up, eyes up_ , He chanted mentally as he maneuvered the blankets, tucking them around the angel like a fussing mother hen. Sitting next to him then, Dean extended an arm around his blanketed shoulders and pulled him towards him again. They sat like that for a few minutes while the angel’s breathing slowed and his sobs became gentle hiccups.

Once he seemed calmer, Dean tilted his head down, trying to catch Cas’s eyes. He could feel the heat radiating out from his reddened skin even though the blanket. 

“Hey hot wings,” he tried lightly. “You always have the shower that warm? Human skin can be a little fragile, y’know.”

“Yes,” Cas answered simply, his voice even lower and scratchier than usual from all the crying. His gaze dropped back to his blanketed lap, returning to silence and breathing.

“Do you, uh… do you wanna talk about it?” Dean asked quietly, hoping that his voice didn’t betray that ‘talking about it’ was hardly one of his strong suits.

Cas raised an eyebrow at him skeptically. He knew. 

“I wouldn’t wish to make you uncomfortable Dean.” He paused and shook his head slightly. “Let’s just put some TV on. A beer, maybe.”

Although that was definitely what Dean would prefer in any situation, something didn’t sit right in his stomach just letting the angel shrug it off.  _He was crying blood. Sobbing like a baby. He barely shows any emotion at all but… he seemed so heartbroken. I can’t let that go, buddy._

* * *

  
After passing Cas the remote so he could find a show for them to watch, Dean stood from the bed and stepped briefly into the bathroom so he could privately call Sam in a whisper.

“Dean? Why are you whispering?”

“I’m in the bathroom, away from Cas.”

“You know he can probably hear you anyway, right?”

Dean sighed. “Yeah. But I’m hoping he’s being polite. Listen…. Did anything happen earlier? When you were sneaking around with my damn car?”

He heard Sam give a long exhale before he responded. “Why Dean? Like what?”

“I went to get beer and when I came back he… he was in the shower. Crying, Sam. Like… tears of blood crying. Remember when the God Squad tortured Samandriel?”

There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment. 

“Yeah, uh… I guess that might be my fault. I mean, it might not be, but…” Sam trailed off awkwardly. “Did he say anything to you? Before you went to the store?”

“Not really… he cleaned up one of my wounds for me. We…uh… chatted for a minute I guess.” Dean reached up, pushing his hand through his hair. “I mean… it was a little… intense? I suppose? I dunno. Probably no weirder than he usually is. Why? What’s going on Sam – what did you do?” The frustration was clear in Dean’s voice.

“You’re probably going to be mad at me, and I just want to say you have every right to be, I probably should have talked to you first…”

“Sam.”

“I just… I thought I was helping him I guess? I mean I understand why you would be angry but…”

“SAMMY.”

“He’s in love with you, Dean.”


	5. Part 5 - Castiel

Cas flicked idly between the limited channels on the motel’s slightly cracked TV.  _What would Dean want to watch?_ He wondered idly, skipping quickly past a procedural crime drama.  _Definitely not that._

The bathroom door opened and Dean emerged. It had been so tempting to listen in to his conversation with Sam, but Cas figured he owed him some privacy. He dropped his eyes down to the ugly floral blanket Dean had covered him with, suddenly a little embarrassed. Dropping the TV remote on the bed, he sighed. “Dean, I…. I’m sorry. That was awkward for you.”

The mattress depressed as Dean lowered himself slowly to sit next to Cas, exhaling slowly. “Well… yeah. It was. But it’s okay Cas. I’m not upset or mad at you.” One of Deans hands came to Cas’s chin, tilting it up so he could see his face, and Cas realized he had a warm washcloth in his other hand. “Here, let me.”

Dean patted softly at his cheeks and eyes, smoothing away the traces of blood remaining on his skin. Castiel dropped his gaze down again, fixed on Dean’s chest, on the rumpled plain black t-shirt he was wearing beneath an open button down shirt with pushed-up sleeves. He was humbled that Dean would perform this tiny action for him. “You don’t have to-“

“I want to.” Dean was firm. They both knew the angel could clean himself up faster, but the gesture was intended kindly and they both silently let it go.

Satisfied, he placed the washcloth aside on the nightstand, his other hand still cupping Cas’s face, trying to bring his eyes back up to his. His thumb rubbed ghost-like down the stubble at Cas’s chin, making the angels jaw feel like it was buzzing.

“I didn’t know, Cas.” The words were whispered.

 _Oh no. Sam,_ Cas thought desperately, understanding dawning immediately. _He called Sam, of course he told him…. That’s what Winchesters do when they hit a roadblock… they call for backup._

“I mean, I knew…..something. I think. I just didn’t know….what I knew.”

Cas tilted his head, taking a second to untangle Deans words. “So you knew something… and you didn’t mention it…? To try ignore it? To spare the …awkwardness?”

“No, Cas…” Dean shifted again, a little uncomfortably, bringing his other hand up now to completely cup the Seraphim’s face, forcing him to meet his gaze. “No. That’s not what I meant. I just had never….” He exhaled slowly and his hands dropped limply to his own lap. “I never thought about you like that, before.”

 _There it is._  Cas’s thoughts seemed numb, somehow, like they belonged to someone else and he was just listening to them.  _That feeling like the bottom is dropping out of the room and someone has an angel blade to my heart._

Dean licked his lips quickly, wetting them in preparation of his next words. When he got them out, his voice was very slow and quiet… strained, and unsure. 

“I mean, not really. Now and again I’d wonder… That’s not the point. I’m not really used to thinking about men like that, Cas. I mean… I’ve seen attractive guys and I’ve appreciated them, I’m not blind… I look at you and I can tell that you’re really handsome. I’ve seen the way women look at you, and I’m not totally unaffected by it.” He rubbed a hand across his face and Cas vaguely registered that his eyes were red. “But when I look at you Cas, it’s like I….” He’s really struggling at this point. 

Cas tries for an encouraging smile, but he knows it’s weak and hollow, just like his chest feels.  _If Dean needs to talk, let him talk. Even if it hurts. Maybe it’s the only way to clear the air and make this better._

Dean is quiet for a moment, turning his body on the bed to fully face Cas and letting his eyes dance around the angels face, exploring.

“It’s like I don’t really see a man. Your face is… pretty, honestly. I mean, Jimmy Novak was a heck of a looker, Cas.” Dean chuckles a little, awkwardly. “But it’s like… I don’t see him, anymore.”

Castiel is puzzled now, brows almost meeting.  _What does he mean? Could he mean…._

“I see something… more than that. Something other. Something both in him and around him and…..” Dean raked his hand through his hair almost frantically again. “This is stupid.” He stopped abruptly.

“You are not stupid Dean.” Cas stated quietly. It wasn’t much, but it was encouragement.

“I see you, Cas. I don’t see Jimmy anymore because to me… it’s like he’s just a small physical part of someone else. Some greater being that it’s taken me a long time to really start to genuinely see.  Someone… someone spectacular, honestly. Someone I….” Dean croaks, clears his throat. “Someone I never realized I was allowed to want. To love.”

Castiel’s mouth hung open slightly. Dean took his hand, pulling him excruciatingly slowly towards him, talking faster as he gained a little confidence.

“I’m not a good person Cas. I fuck up everything I touch…. You know that. You know it’s true. I just…. I need to make sure you know that. But I also wanted to, uh, to let you know…” That nervous lip licking again. “If you wanted to… if you wanted to try this…then I would be okay with that.”

His voice gained some strength as Cas didn’t pull away, didn’t interrupt. “Actually… I would be honored, Castiel. I’d be honored if you would let me love you.”

All at once that heartbreaking feeling Castiel had been so fearful of collapsed in on itself. His heart felt like it was both imploding and growing at the same time.  _Oh…_ he thought.  _Oh. This is what it’s supposed to feel like…. Not just to love, but to be loved in return._

When their lips met, the floor didn’t fall away. It felt like flying.


	6. Part 6 - Dean

A minute of very slow time drifted lazily past before Castiel pulled away from the hunter, blinking.

“Dean…” His name fell from the angel’s lips slightly breathlessly. Blue eyes looked at him widely, surprise written in them like an expansive novel. “Are you sure that this….. that  _this_ …” Cas gestured vaguely down at his vessel, “is okay? I know this isn’t what you are usually attracted to…and  _I_ … well I am….” The Seraphim before him shook his head slightly, exhaling, and raised a hand to rub the back of his neck again in that awkward, almost shy motion he seemed to have developed in the past few hours. “I’ve made so many mistakes, Dean. I’m nothing now, no use to you.”

 _Damnit_. Sam had warned Dean about this. In the few minutes sealed away in the bathroom, where he balanced on a knife edge and worked out which way to fall - how to react to his brothers confession that he had zoomed away with Cas in  the Impala to tell him that he was okay with this.. that he, Sam, was giving Cas and him his damned blessing – he had pressed Sam for more details, trying to calm himself and work past his first knee-jerk panic reaction.

It was surprisingly easy to admit to himself that he was in love with Cas, that he had been for years. He’d felt that connection between them the first day they met… and then avoided it for all this time, because he needed to avoid the questions that brought up about _him_ , and about what that meant. 

When he’d managed to stumble the words out to tell Sam as much, his brother’s simple answer floored him. _“He’s not a man, Dean. He’s an angel… even if he was a human man there would be nothing wrong with this, but I think Cas slipped into your heart because you don’t see him as a man in the first place. You see him. He’s more than that.”_ He’d then warned Dean about something Cas had said, about being neither a man nor an angel. Being nothing.

Dean wanted to reassure the angel that he was more than his mistakes, but it was a brand of self-loathing that Dean himself was overly familiar with.

“You don’t think you deserve to be loved.” Dean murmured quietly, reaching to grab the angel’s wrist and still the anxious rubbing at his neck, pulling his hand between them and resting it on his chest. A grin pulled at the edge of Dean’s mouth as he realized whose words he was referencing. “Good things do happen, Castiel.”

Cas squinted up at him. “Are you quoting me to me?”

“You remember that, huh.” Dean chuckled, still holding his hand gently over the angel’s as it rested on his chest. “Turns out you were right.”

Dean felt his confidence ebbing as Cas didn’t respond, his eyes dropping down from their shared gaze to watch their hands instead.

After a moment, Dean cleared his throat slightly. 

“Cas, if… if this isn’t what you want, if I’ve misunderstood or you just don’t want to…. Move forward… with this…” Dean found his words coming out clumsily. He’d always sucked at expressing himself, particularly about any thing or feeling that actually mattered. 

He dropped his hand from over top of the angels, but Cas’s hand stayed, still resting flat on Dean’s sternum.

“No, Dean… it’s not that. This connection has pulled at me since I first lifted you…” the strong hand at Deans chest slid upwards, gliding across his shirt to rest at his shoulder, right over the hand print on his soul that had once burned onto his skin. “For the longest time it was…. baffling to me. I _felt things_  for you, Dean.” The angels confession was almost a whisper, like something utterly sinful. “I fell for  _you_ , Dean. I struggled to understand it, until came back as a human. Then the force of it… it scared me for a long time. I’m not like you Dean. This is new, it’s…. well,” Cas laughed, a little bitterly Dean thought. “You called me a baby once, when I didn’t have my powers. It hurt but… I’m sure to you it seems that way sometimes. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m inexperienced at…. well _, everything._  ”

Something in Dean rose to the surface with almost a growl. He wasn’t angry, but for a second it sure felt like it. He stepped forward and closed the last few inches of space between them, his hands invading the angels space to hold his other fist, which clutched at his stomach holding the flowery motel blanket closed about him. Dean’s other hand reached up to the back of Cas’s neck, encouraging him to tilt his head up. “Cas, look at me.”

He did, like an electric ocean of apprehension and wonder and fear…and something else.

“There is nothing that I can’t teach you or that we can’t just learn _together,_  Cas.”  Dean held the angels gaze, trying to push his words home. He stepped forward, pushing the back of his friend’s knees against the edge of the bed. 

“You just have to be brave enough to be honest with me, angel. You just have to let me know if this is what you want.”

Years of girlfriend and bar hookup conditioning took over and Dean used his hand on Cas’s clasped fist full of fabric to push him back firmly onto the bed. He kneeled onto the mattress and climbed up to meet the angels eyes, pushed up on his hands so that his body was poised above Cas but carefully not touching him at all, waiting for permission. 

“You have to tell me what you want.” Dean repeated, vaguely aware that his voice was husky and shaking.

The angels blue eyes were blown black as he looked back up at him… and all at once Cas’s hands were in his hair, pulling him down for a fiery, filthy kiss that was completely different to the tentative, almost sweet touch of the lips they had shared only moments before. 

“I want  _you_ … I want all of you, Dean Winchester.” It was a growl that he could feel in the angel’s throat and chest as he pulled him down, pressed against him.

Suddenly, Dean became hyper aware somewhere in this mind that this beautiful, wild creature he had somehow won was not human… very far from it. It was like laying atop a dragon, something ancient and primal and barely understood. Something must have shown in his reaction, because Cas pulled back, searching for Deans face with his hands.

“Dean….” He paused, letting his thumbs dance across the Winchester’s cheekbones. “We’ve hurt each other often. We’ve fought and bloodied each other countless times. But I need you to know… when we are like this, I will never hurt you. You might worry that I could….” 

Dean felt the thrum of a strangely cold heat dance across his cheekbones for a second as Cas’ grace rose to the surface, gone as quickly as it came. 

“But know I wouldn’t. Even if we get angry, even if we fight, like  _this_ ….” Cas reached up, pressing his lips to Deans in the sweetest, most chaste kiss Dean could remember, “I will never hurt you. Don’t hold back out of fear, Dean.”

He parted his pillowy lips with his tongue, moistening them to begin to speak and clarify his eagerness as he supported himself on one arm, drawing his free hand into the angel’s side. His thumb drew across Cas’s rib cage, feeling his smooth, hard skin, causing him to pause and think before he got his words out. 

 _Skin?_  

Dean puzzled for the briefest second before the events of the last few hours tumbled hastily through his mind, drawing his eyes down to the Seraphim’s body. The over-washed comforter that had shielded Cas since his shower was tangled below them, lost in the angel’s quest to plant that blistering hot kiss on Dean just moments earlier. He was still naked from the shower. Dean couldn’t control his green eyes creeping lower, taking in every solid inch of the angel. 

 _This is really happening,_ his thoughts intruded for a moment. Cas’s muscled shoulders were smooth, not a freckle or blemish to be seen. His chest rose and fell slightly as he breathed in deep, something that Dean knew to be more a habit than a necessity for him. His stomach was firm and muscled. _Maybe I need to start running with Sam…_.Dean briefly considered.  _Nah_. As his eyes lowered further, Dean almost felt himself crossing some kind of invisible line as his best friends dick came into view. Cas was erect, swollen and reddening at his tip, a tiny drip of precum already oozing from his head. 

 _Oh._  Dean’s breath caught.  _This is really happening._

The world seemed suspended. Dean experienced a rush of so many emotions it felt like it took him an hour to rifle through them all, though he suspected barely more than a second or two of time had passed.  _Nut up, Winchester. He told himself firmly. Don’t change the habits of a lifetime now, just because you’re being a wuss. If you want something, take it._

Dean placed a hand gently on Castiel’s stomach, his fingers splayed out as he came into contact with the angel’s soft skin. Raising his gaze back up, he found Cas looking at him hungrily, his mouth slightly open and his blue eyes fixed on Dean. His nod was almost imperceptible, but it was the permission Dean needed to move decisively. 

Using the hand on Cas’s stomach to push himself up, he rocked back onto his heels. Straddling the angel’s thighs, he shook his shoulders from his button-up shirt, casting the well worn fabric down to the floor in a messy pile. He reached to the hem of his black t-shirt to pull it over his head, but paused as he felt Cas’s fingers cover his.

“Do you mind if I….?” Cas’s tongue came out to moisten his lips as he nodded towards him, indicating. He had sat up, bringing them once more only inches apart as Dean straddled his legs, essentially sat in the angel’s lap. Dean looked into his angels eyes, working through the layers there in that way that they had always had, to see what the angel was really thinking. He smiled, finally spotting that tiny dot of entirely un-angelic apprehension and uncertainty. _Of course. New at everything._

“Of course not….take your time angel.” Dean reached behind Cas’s head, tangling his fingers in his hair as he came forward to press their lips together again, speaking breathlessly against the other man’s soft pout. “Don’t rush anything…. just relax and try things. Learn what you like, baby.”

Cas frowned and Dean could tell he was weighing his words, working out if Dean was mocking him again as he had in the past when using that term. A split second of contemplation later the angel’s eyes lit warmly and he smiled against Dean’s mouth, before returning the kiss. He understood the subtle difference in the tone of the word.

Raising his arms, Dean didn’t resist as Cas slowly lifted his shirt up over his chest to shed it, greeting the emerging skin with kisses, soft strokes and gently mumbled words against his flesh that he was fairly sure weren’t in English. Dean’s head lolled back in enjoyment as the Seraphim’s lips dragged exquisitely across his collarbone, tasting and caressing at the bone and on up his neck. The hunter sighed loudly in enjoyment, unashamed of how good it felt to be treated so reverentially. His eyes closed briefly and he felt his heart lift. It felt like he was being worshiped.

As if his hands were working on their own, he circled his arms around Cas’s waist, trailing his fingers up the expansive skin of his back very slowly. He leaned his head forward to rest on the angel’s shoulder, letting the pads of his fingers learn every bump of his spine and appreciate the smooth expanse of his shoulder blades. He let his hands rest where he knew, from shadows alone, the angel’s wings connected to his back and stroked the skin there as he left a trail of kisses up his shoulder.

“Dean….” he felt the angel’s back quiver slightly as his breath caught. He could feel his own erection pressing urgently against his jeans as the angel spoke, the deep rumble of his voice vibrating through his chest against Dean’s body. “That feels so good Dean….you feel so good…..” He groaned then, a deep and guttural sound that sent excitement pulsing through Dean. He felt the angel’s rock hard cock shudder against his stomach.

Suddenly the angel’s hands were at his belt and it was open; Cas’s hands pulled Dean’s body against him as he lay back onto the bed, taking him down with him. All at once the clothes were kicked off and gone and they lay face to face, grabbing at each other, all bruising lips and hungry moans. Dean slid his hand between their bodies, taking his angel firmly in hand and running his thumb across the dripping opening of his cock.

“Dean…. “ Cas’s voice hitched desperately against their lips. “Please.”

Permission granted, Dean stroked a firm rhythm up and down Cas’s quivering cock, knowing it wasn’t going to take long. He slid his other hand around the back of his neck, curling the angel to him and holding him through it as he groaned desperately, his hot cum suddenly shooting out to coat both of their stomachs as they pressed together.

 _“Ol monon…. Ol hoath…._ ” Dean didn’t understand Enochian, but the breathless sounds falling from his friends lips warmed his heart… not to mention his groin.

Reaching down to return the favor for Dean, Cas murmured in Enochian every word he’d wanted to say to his love that English just couldn’t do justice.

Dean rutted desperately into the angel’s hand, turning his spent, fond face back up so he could look him in the eye as he came in turn.

“Was that okay, Dean?” Cas asked against his ear, the two of them twined stickily together in the warm motel air. “It felt… so good…. I can’t describe it. Better than I could deserve.”

Dean’s smile was a redemption as he kissed his angel. “That was how it feels to be loved, Cas… and we both deserve it.”


	7. Epilogue - Sam

It had been a couple of hours since Dean’s whispered phone call from the motel bathroom. Sam half expected his brother to come busting through the door of his room to whup his ass… and he wasn’t sure whether he should take his absence as a sign that he wasn’t mad, or that he was really, really mad.

Sam had already called Jack to check in, letting him know they’d be home a little later than planned. He’d taken a long shower, organized his duffle, and finished his salad. Eventually, he gave up fidgeting and read. A full three hours now, he noted. Closing his book, he almost made up his mind to call Cas and check that he’s okay, when there was a knock on his door.

Opening it to see Dean stood wordlessly in the doorway, Sam held up a hand somewhat defensively. 

“Dean, I…”

Stepping forward, Dean pulled him in for a heartwarming brotherly hug.

“Thank you, Sammy.” Releasing his shoulders and regarding him with a wry grin, Dean awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. “Turns out, you really do know me better than I do, sometimes.”

“So…” Sam’s huge smile is verging on teasing already. “The Winchester Gospels were right. Destiel after all?”

He only laughed even more when his brother smacked him, not that gently, right in the shoulder.

 

_The End._


End file.
